About VMware vFabric Postgres

VMware® vFabric™ Postgres is based on the open source PostgreSQL database system and is
optimized for virtual environments. In addition to all standard PostgreSQL features, vFabric Postgres provides elastic database memory, checkpoint self-tuning, and a GUI administration tool.

VMware® vFabric™ Postgres is available as an RPM installation or as an OVA (virtual appliance). The virtual appliance provides the functionality available in the vFabric Postgres RPM installation, plus the following features:

64 bit SLES 11 SP2 operating system

Watchdog process to enable vSphere HA. On ESXi, the watchdog reboots on the same physical host. The
watchdog must be enabled from ESXi.

What's New in vFabric Postgres 9.2.9.1

vFabric Postgres 9.2.9.1 is a security update of vFabric Postgres, and addresses the following Common Vulnerability and Exposure (CVE) items:

CVE-2014-6271

CVE-2014-7169

CVE-2014-7186

CVE-2014-7187

Some deployments of vFabric Postgres use the Bash shell, which is part of the Linux operating system. If the operating system has a vulnerable version of Bash, the Bash security vulnerability might be exploited through vFabric Postgres. To address these issues, Bash binaries have been updated to resolve multiple critical security issues, also referred to as Shellshock. To learn more about the Shellshock security issues, and how to address them in vFabric Postgres, see VMware Knowledge Base article #2091055.

If you currently use vFabric Postgres 9.2.9 or earlier releases, update your environment to use vFabric Postgres 9.2.9.1 instead.

To perform the update, follow the instructions on the vFabric blog article How to Perform Security Updates on vFabric Postgres. If you use the Virtual Appliance update mechanism, restart the database server by rebooting the appliance or by stopping and starting the aurora_mon service.

Whats New in vFabric Postgres 9.2.9

vFabric Postgres 9.2.9 provides the following enhancements.

vFabric Postgres 9.2.9 is based on the PostgresSQL 9.2.9 core engine, including the latest community fixes.

Whats New in vFabric Postgres 9.2.6

vFabric Postgres 9.2.6 provides the following enhancements.

vFabric Postgres 9.2.6 is based on the PostgresSQL 9.2.6 core engine, including the latest community fixes for replication and data corruption issues.

Updates the latest SLES 11 SP2 build.

Whats New in vFabric Postgres 9.2.4

vFabric Postgres 9.2.4 is a security update of vFabric Postgres and addresses the following Common Vulnerability and Exposure (CVE) items:

CVE-2013-1899

CVE-2013-1900

CVE-2013-1901

Note: If you currently use vFabric Postgres 9.2.2, update your environment to use vFabric Postgres 9.2.4 instead. The database formats for the two releases are compatible. vFabric Postgres 9.2.2 is no longer available as a separate download.

All updates to the PostgreSQL 9.2.2 release are included in vFabric Postgres 9.2.4.

To perform the update, follow the instructions on the vFabric blog article How to Perform Security Updates on vFabric Postgres. If you use the Virtual Appliance update mechanism, restart the database server by rebooting the appliance or by stopping and starting the aurora_mon service.

Whats New in vFabric Postgres 9.2.2

vFabric Postgres 9.2.2 is a major release that incorporates PostgreSQL 9.2.2 bug fixes, and new features.

In addition to the new PostgreSQL 9.2.2 features, vFabric Postgres 9.2.2 provides these enhancements.

Users can replace PostgreSQL 9.2 executable files with vFabric Postgres 9.2.2 executable files. This means that vFabric Postgres 9.2.2 can use database files that are created with PostgreSQL 9.2 release.

A GUI administration tool for vFabric Postgres 9.2.2 is included with the virtual appliance. If you are using the RPM installation, you can install the GUI explicitly.

The vFabric Postgres 9.2. database format is not compatible with
vFabric Postgres 9.1. You can dump a vFabric Postgres 9.1 database and restore it from vFabric Postgres 9.2. See the Using VMware vFabric Postgres manual.

Known Issues and Workarounds

psql commands with UTF8 fail in Windows client
Entering psql commands that contain UTF8 characters at the Windows command prompt result in error messages to the shell.
Workaround: None.

Need additional files when installing 32-bit client with 64-bit RHEL server
If you are installing the VMware-vPostgres-32bit-client-version.rpm, you might get an error message.
Workaround: You may need to install the following Red Hat packages.

Adding these packages installs two new files in your glibc directory and two new files in your nss-softokn-freebl
directory.

ODBC file DSN information not saved
If you are creating a vFabric Postgres database using the vFabric Data Director interface, you might get an error when trying to save the ODBC connection information. This is because the 'File DSN' window cannot read braces in the server name.
Workaround: Escape the braces with backslashes or put the server name in single quotes, as follows:

Must use OVF tool if window resolution is less than 1280 x 1024
If you are installing the vFabric Postgres appliance on different platform than vSphere, and
your monitor resolution is 1280 by 1024 or lower (for example 1440 x 900 or 800 x 480) your
screen may become full-sized during the EULA deployment, and you may not be able to re-size it.
Workaround: Use VMware OVF Tool to convert the OVA package to a VMX package, as follows.

Use VMware Workstation or another VMware product to deploy the aurora.vmx file. Accept the EULA as part of the
deployment process.

vFabric Postgres virtual appliance resets host name upon reboot
If you change the host name in the virtual appliance a reboot resets the name. Even if you use a static IP address, the host name is pulled from DNS upon reboot. If you use an IP address that does not have associated host name in DNS, the appliance picks up the name of the local host upon reboot.
Workaround: None.